Page 1 of Daikon
THEY JOINED THE LINE OUTSIDE the Warfield Theater, a man and a woman.
The picture was Camille, starring Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor, “the most poignant love story ever told,” according to the ad in the paper.
It had not been his choice. He would have preferred to see Gary Cooper in The Plainsman .
He liked Westerns. They were easier to understand.
But she wanted to see Camille, and he wanted to please her.
So he had taken the bus across the Bay Bridge and met her outside the Warfield for the six-thirty show.
The news from home wasn’t good. It had been on the front page of the Tribune that very morning when he checked the time for the show: “Japan Cabinet Forced to Quit.” The militarists were taking over.
He would be returning to a Japan that was heading toward war. Would he be going alone? Or would she…
He glanced at her. She smiled back—the smile that never failed to flutter his heart, that promised to fill the void inside him that he now knew was there. How was he going to tell her? How was he going to express these feelings that were so overwhelming he didn’t know how to put them into words?
They were almost to the ticket window. It was flanked by a life-size advertisement for the film, the two stars locked in a passionate embrace, Camille in red, the words encircled in lights: “Garbo Loves Taylor!”
Garbo loves Taylor.
It’s so easy in the movies, he thought as they entered the theater.
She cried when Garbo died in Taylor’s arms at the end and was still dabbing at her eyes as they left the theater, he walking her home. They continued in silence past City Hall. Then they were turning north on her street, and he knew he had no more than ten minutes left.
He began to walk more slowly, tension starting to build in his stomach.
He stopped.
She said, “Are you all right?”
He looked into her eyes, desperate.
“I…”
Nothing more came out. He struggled to get past the blockage, to kick it down, to get around it. He had to let her know or he would be returning to Japan alone. And that surely would kill him.
“I…”
His shoulders subsided. His eyes dropped to the ground. And then a thought came into his head and before he could reconsider he blurted out:
“Taylor loves Garbo!”
A look of surprise on her face, softening to a smile of understanding. She knew.
She wrapped her arms around him and laid her head on his shoulder.
“And Garbo loves Taylor,” she whispered.
And they kissed.